Investing in the Internet of Cars

Image Credit: Ross Patton

You’re driving in your car on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Traffic is getting heavy, but you’re not going to let that bother you today.

The air is far too warm and the beach is far too close for you to feel anything other than at peace.

Out of nowhere, though, the unthinkable happens: You’re forced to sit helplessly as your car begins to take on a mind of its own.

First, the wipers begin to sweep back and forth.

Then the horn starts blaring without end.

Soon enough, you realize you have no control over the breaking system, and the vehicle begins turning completely on its own.

Frantically, you try to make sense of the situation. Has you car become possessed? Are you living in some kind of twisted adaptation of a Stephen King story?

No, that’s impossible.

You pinch your skin, and hard. But alas, you’re not in a dream.

You then come to the stark realization that this isn’t the plot of some cheesy horror flick your mind has cooked up. It’s something even worse:

A hacker has actually forced his way into your car’s computer system and is now controlling it through his laptop miles away.

An Inevitable Danger

If the story above sounds familiar, you may have caught a glimpse of 60 Minutes this past weekend, in which members from U.S. military research branch DARPA demonstrate how easy it is to hack in and literally take control of a modern automobile.

It might sound impossible, but unfortunately it’s not.

DARPA’s Kathleen Fisher points out that today, modern vehicles are just computers on wheels. And more often than not, they aren’t particularly secure.

In fact, in a recent report coming from the office of Senator Edward J. Markey, it’s said that cyber security measures to protect us from such attacks have so far been “inconsistent and haphazard.”

According to Markey, the report, which took detailed information from 16 manufacturers, reveals that “automakers haven’t done their part to protect us from cyberattacks or privacy invasions.”

It further declares “a clear lack of appropriate security measures to protect drivers against hackers who may be able to take control of a vehicle,” as well as hackers who wish to “collect and use personal driver information.”

In other words, hackers may not just be able to take control of your vehicle but could even track your movements without you knowing.

Sound scary? Well, it gets worse.

That’s because it’s not just about attacks on individual vehicles. We’re creating a growing network of connected vehicles — an “Internet of Cars,” so to speak — which will demand advanced cyber security services in order to function properly.

Eventually, every car on the road will be connected, and many will be driverless, too. If control of that network fell into the wrong hands, the results would obviously be disastrous.

The most dangerous thing about driverless cars is not that they won’t be able to navigate on their own, but that they will do it too well. The danger is that we’ll eventually begin to centralize transportation, creating a massive vulnerability to national security.

If that doesn’t scare you at least little, it should.

Because if history tells us anything, it’s that technological progress cannot be stopped. The “Internet of Cars” is coming, no matter how futuristic it may seem and no matter the security concerns it creates.

Of course, none of this means a successful attack on that system is bound to happen. It only means it could.

In the meantime, we can best take action by continuously calling for strong cyber security measures, holding manufacturers accountable, and, of course, investing in the technologies making the “Internet of Cars” a possibility (cyber security included).

Until next time,

Jason Stutman

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